Game 50: Holy crap, the Jays won
by Randy Booth on May 30, 2009 12:16 AM EDT
in Game Stories
23 comments
FINAL SCORE: Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 3
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Daniel Bard (2.1 IP, 5K, 0H, 1BB)
The Jays beat us. How the hell did that happen?
Tim Wakefield just wasn't very good. He allowed six runs in 4.2 innings of work. Daniel Bard, though, is an absolute stud: he worked 2.1 innings and struck out five. I didn't get to see him pitch, but holy crap, that's an awesome line. This bullpen is absolutely filthy right now. Takashi Saito pitched a scoreless inning and dropped his ERA to 3.00.
The offense came from a couple of RBIs from Jacoby Ellsbury (two hits). Jason Bay and Julio Lugo also had two hits.
The Red Sox need to get on a roll. The bullpen has been on all season, but the pitching and hitting likes to take offdays at different times. They both don't seem to be on at the same time. The Red Sox aren't a postseason team if they continue to play like this.
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Players are performing well here and there, just not at the same time or when we need them to. Bullpen has been consistently unreal, but besides that everything else hasn’t been consistent. The talents there and when everything clicks I believe we can run away with the A.L. East. Just a question of when or if.
by BOSPORTS on May 30, 2009 10:14 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
If I knew nothing about the Red Sox, but read what you wrote
(and assuming what you wrote was correct), then by logical deduction, I would blame management for this failure to make the talent integrate and perform properly. Now you may be wrong in these assumptions, but as I’ve just said, I do not believe you are.
I could stop here and let you just form your own judgement about Francona/management’s expertise this year, but let me express my feelings for my own venting benefit. I do not believe Sox management has done well this year. The main problem areas are in not conditioning the players properly, not playing the best ones consistently, and leaving failing starters in too long!
by NG on May 30, 2009 10:39 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The fluctuations are occurring too quickly, though
The inconsistent play from our offense and defense is happening on too short a timescale to be managed. A guy will go 3-for-5 and turn a brilliant defensive play one day, then go 0-for-5 with two strikeouts and a GIDP and look like a mess in the field the next. You can’t micromanage the lineup to deal with that.
As for the starting pitching issues, it’s partly tied into the poor defensive play, and part of it is the simple fact that if your starters aren’t reliably making it into the sixth inning, it doesn’t matter how good a bullpen the team has. A team does not make it to the World Series these days without good starting pitching and a good bullpen.
by lone1c on May 30, 2009 11:25 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Jezzzzzz, I did it again.
Look below for the reply post as I put in in the wrong area again!
by NG on May 30, 2009 12:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Some areas have been consistently poor
DH with Oritz and shortstop with whomever is playing with Lowrie out injured. I don’t think you can do much about SS except wait for Lowrie to return but the DH has become a joke. Management has shown no balls with that situation. As for the starting pitching, Beckett and Lester have been inconsistent and overall disappointing and Dice-K has done absolutely nothing for the Sox all year – zero wins. What can you do when your 1-2-3 pitchers are struggling? Beckett is showing signs he’s coming back to top form. Lester is a mystery but I still have great confidence in him. Dice-K……that’s a big concern. Wakefield is still a dependable pitcher but basically a .500 guy; with Penny you hold your breath and hope for the best. When is Smoltz going to pitch? That should be very interesting.
The worst thing I’ve seen all year is the constant high number of runners left on base. Ortiz is the worst in that department. Every few years Boston has a poison on the team: a guy who kills them. Nomar was a negative influence, especially in the dugout; Ramirez quit on the team and Papi is just plain killing them. Lugo is simply inept and a guy who only gets hits when they aren’t important, and makes crucial mistakes in the field in close games.
Why do these guys keep playing? Ask Tito and Theo – I blame them. With better management, this team would be 5-6 games ahead in first place.
by ccthemovieman on May 30, 2009 12:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Why Ortiz and Lugo are playing
It comes down to one thing: $$$.
Between them, they have about one-sixth of the Sox’s payroll for this year. It’s an awfully bitter pill to have to swallow that that much money has to be flushed down the drain.
(On Lugo’s part, I suspect they’re trying to find a way to make him at least marginally palatable to another team.)
by lone1c on May 30, 2009 3:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
And not just this year
They also have between them $21+MM in guaranteed money for 2010 as well.
by lone1c on May 30, 2009 3:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
so it's better
to play them and lose, rather than admit a mistake , put better players in….and win? Ortiz is now down to .180-something. Sooner or later, the Sox have to eat the money and – hopefully – do what it takes to field a better lineup.
by ccthemovieman on May 30, 2009 3:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Lugo is playing because Lowrie is hurt and the Sox do not really have any better options (and do not give me this Nick Green BS, he has played well, not significantly better than Lugo).
Ortiz is playing because he has an established record of dominance. Maybe they have been loyal to him for a little too long, but I doubt the Sox will keep playing him solely because of the money.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
by BTLove on May 30, 2009 4:31 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
+1
I gotta go 'cause I'm probably definitely gonna nod out again.
by Drugs Delaney on May 31, 2009 11:06 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Exactly.
And they’d make way more money in revenue if they won a few more games.
by bs.uf15bosox9bears23 on May 31, 2009 10:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Like I said, they don't want to have to flush $21MM down the drain
If they benched them, DFA’d them, or trade Lugo for essentially peanuts, that’s what they’re doing. They want to give Ortiz every chance to succeed before they do anything rash.
But there’s no doubt in my mind that if they weren’t making as much as they did, they’d have already been sent packing or at least benched—-Lugo last year, and Ortiz a few weeks ago.
by lone1c on Jun 2, 2009 8:27 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
But is what I wrote micro or macro
management? Surely macro management is a must do task for management. I said,
“The main problem areas are in not conditioning the players properly, not playing the best ones consistently, and leaving failing starters in too long!”
Surely proper conditioning is a macro task, and if not done properly, is a task I could attribute to poor management.
Not playing the best players because of some loyalty issue or blindness is a task I could surely attribute to poor management.
Now it is true that leaving failing starters in too long is a bit of a micro-management issue, but it could be transformed into a systematic macro-issue by just looking at the pitch count and seeing if there is a relationship. You can wish for gold but if straw only happens after 65 pitches, deal with it on a macro -systems level! Why loose intentionally?
by NG on May 30, 2009 12:07 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
How do you get 600 innings out of a 7-man bullpen?
By that analysis, if we pull the starter every time he starts having trouble in the 5th, you’re looking at an easy 600+ innings of work for the season. Relievers typically do not work more than about 80 innings a year. So where are the extra innings going to come from if you only have a 7-man bullpen?
by lone1c on May 30, 2009 3:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
If SOME of the starters are losing it anyway at 70 pitches,
what do you lose by letting the pen maybe lose it instead. The deep pen may surprise you and do well and win instead. We have a very deep pen right now, and besides, some starters may actually hang in there longer sometimes. I am just saying, have someone warming up after 70 pitches so when they (the starters) are being badly hit, don’t let it get so far gone before you bring in the reliever anyway! Now that is a waste of a relievers time and effort to come in after the game is blown too far away for them to do anything meaningful, yet they still have to come it.
by NG on May 30, 2009 3:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Let's look at it on a per week basis.
Say we need 4 innings a night for 6 nights a week, which is 24 relief innings a week. Are you telling me that with 7 relievers, they could not handle 3.5 innings pitched A WEEK EACH. Come on.
by NG on May 30, 2009 4:12 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
3.5 innings per week=84 innings per season. This is manageable, but definitely on the upper end of IP’s for relievers. If that is the average innings per pitcher, we could probably expect that some guys will be asked to pitch 90-100 innings per year. That is a lot of innings and could adversely effect playoff performances pretty easily.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
by BTLove on May 30, 2009 4:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
As I have been saying, there is a new Chinese proberb:
Not enough wins in season, no playoffs, and/or you go home early!
by NG on May 31, 2009 8:39 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
And here's another
Overworked bullpen in playoffs, go home without winning World Series!
Keep in mind that NO bullpen pitcher for Boston pitched more than 75 innings for the Sox during the regular season last year (and let’s throw in Ramon Ramirez in that list, too). You’re asking all of them to go well above that total—-in some cases, substantially over that total—-and still expect them to perform at a high level at the end of the season. I don’t think that’s realistic.
by lone1c on Jun 2, 2009 8:20 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
This "poor-conditioning" theory makes no sense.
Did management forget how to condition their players? or is this something you have noticed that happened consistently over the past 5 years (and 2 World Series)? What do you think has changed in their conditioning routine that would cause poor performance?
Jon Lester is just as bad from pitch 1-25 as he is from pitch 75-100. Why is this? The point is that we do not really know why these guys have been bad. But I doubt it is some poorly conceived conditioning plan. This is a major league baseball team. They know how to condition their players.
"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw
by BTLove on May 30, 2009 4:47 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I just let the performances speak for themselves.
I do not know if the conditioning this year was more lax, but the older player,s who would benefit the most from a great all year long conditioning program, seem to be the worse off. Also the pitchers definately seem unable to complete the 100 pitches in a fashion that you would expect from relatively young and well-condtioned players. So again, I thing what we see speaks for itself!
by NG on May 31, 2009 8:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Holy Crap..................
The jays are gonna sweep the Sox
by Peoria-Bum on May 31, 2009 1:34 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
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